Free kibbles

SOCIALISM:

Because the private sector provides cell phones and the Indian government provides toilets and running water, Indians who live in slums tend to have working cell phones, but not working toilets. This is a good reminder that government is the enemy of civilization.

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Why should a police officer be allowed to carry a gun to the polls but not the citizens who empower him? This is bull****. What part of "shall not be infringed" don't these poll workers understand?

TAX AND SPEND:

Germany refused to steal billions from its people for a stimulus boondoggle, and as a result its economy is growing while ours isn't.

"Germany has been scolded, even browbeaten, by Obama administration officials, from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on down, for saving too much and spending too little."

Savings drive economic growth, and people can't save money that the government steals from them or borrows in order to steal from them later.

REGULATION:

Intel may be in a lot of trouble business-wise. The FTC has ruled that it will determine the specifications for Intel chips from now on. You think I'm kidding?

"After considering public comments, the FTC modified the proposed order to allow Intel to manufacture and sell a chip that it had in development before the proposed order was negotiated, but that would violate that order because it does not contain a required interface. The FTC modified the order to allow Intel to ship this product until June 2013. All future generations of this chip must fully comply with all specifications of the final Order."

If this ruling stands, and given the FTC's power there's no reason to think it won't, this is likely the kiss of death for Intel. AMD may be the big winner.

EDUCATION:

Reaffirming their commitment to big government and using it to control and loot the people, establishment Republicans refuse to abolish the Dept.of Education. That's why this election will make almost no difference.

Union teachers using school equipment to promote Democrat candidates.

HEALTH CARE:

Evidence bolstering the case for refusing a flu shot.

"Interestingly, the Sydney Morning Herald recently reported that Australian "public health experts have called for an independent body to monitor drug safety after it emerged that young children were more likely to end up in hospitals because of side effects from a flu vaccine than they were from the disease itself. The analysis contradicts government safety advice that the harm did not outweigh the risk and raises concerns about the Therapeutic Goods Administration's assessment of the vaccine.""

Sounds like government: seizing people's money, ordering them to do something dangerous, and making them sick so they have to pay more for health care.

"Not only do flu shots weaken your immune system, expose you to toxins, and cause allergies and other adverse reactions, they don't work.

Yes, you read that correctly. Besides being fraught with complications, flu vaccines simply don't work to decrease flu incidence or flu mortality. Flu vaccinations keep coming up short in study after study – way short – when it comes to having any measurable impact on what matters most, which is reducing illness and mortality from the flu."

Only government.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Global warming correlated to the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a natural climate cycle spanning about 70 years.

POLICE STATE:

Government will not be satisfied until it has destroyed the airline industry.

More nude-scanner information. Printable pamphlet informing airline passengers of the dangers and their rights regarding the nude-scanners.

Man who lived through Pinochet's Chilean fascist police state says the US is a fascist police state too.

"A police-state uses the law as a mechanism to control any challenges to its power by the citizenry, rather than as a mechanism to insure a civil society among the individuals. The state decides the laws, is the sole arbiter of the law, and can selectively (and capriciously) decide to enforce the law to the benefit or detriment of one individual or group or another.

In a police-state, the citizens are “free” only so long as their actions remain within the confines of the law as dictated by the state. If the individual’s claims of rights or freedoms conflict with the state, or if the individual acts in ways deemed detrimental to the state, then the state will repress the citizenry, by force if necessary. (And in the end, it’s always necessary.)

What’s key to the definition of a police-state is the lack of redress: If there is no justice system which can compel the state to cede to the citizenry, then there is a police-state. If there exists apro forma justice system, but which in practice is unavailable to the ordinary citizen because of systemic obstacles (for instance, cost or bureaucratic hindrance), or which against all logic or reason consistently finds in favor of the state—even in the most egregious and obviously contradictory cases—then that pro forma judiciary system is nothing but a sham: A tool of the state’s repression against its citizens. Consider the Soviet court system the classic example."

Sounds like the US to me.

"By a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court has explicitly stated that Congress and/or the Executive is “uniquely positioned” to determine who is a terrorist and who is not—and therefore has the right to silence not just the terrorist organization, but anyone trying to speak to them, or hear them."

Bye-bye due process, which has always been a sham anyway. No need to bother with that facade any longer.

"So! To sum up: The U.S. government can decide unilaterally who is a terrorist organization and who is not. Anyone speaking to such a designated terrorist group is “providing material support” to the terrorists—and is therefore subject to prosecution at the discretion of the U.S. government. And if, in the end, it turns out that one definitely was not involved in terrorist activities, there is no way to receive redress by the state.

Sounds like a fascist police-state to me."

Me too.

WAR:

This essay brings up a good question: If Jonah Goldberg wants Jullian Assange dead, why doesn't he murder him himself? Calling for Assange's murder is as bad as David Broder advising Obama to attack Iran so he could get re-elected. These incidents show the depravity of the ruling class and their propagandist minions on both the left and the right.

"The differences between Jonah Goldberg and Julian Assange are legion. Assange is a courageous iconoclast, brilliant, angry, driven and effective. Goldberg is an idiotic, chicken-hearted coward with limited talent in his chosen field. When he calls for the assassination by those employed by or ostensibly on the side of the US government, as he did publicly a few days ago, it tells us more about Goldberg’s own concerns and lack of character than Assange’s alleged "crimes" against the corporate state."

Well said.

Call for a war tax instead of printing money to pay for wars. I think just calling to end the wars is more likely to be successful.

"Amidst all the low-brow invective, Tom Brokaw, the respected former national news host for NBC News, recently wrote a fine opinion column for the New York Times, "The Wars That America Forgot About."

He quite rightly asked why the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been ignored during the election race. After nine years of combat, 5,000 US dead and 35,000 seriously wounded soldiers, and expenditure of over $1 trillion – silence."

These wars are off the radar. One probable reason is the casualties are so low. After nine years, the casualties are an order of magnitude lower than the casualties in Vietnam. It seems that's below the threshold where Americans care. That's a terrible indictment of the American people, but I bet it's true. Another reason is both parties support the wars. If the aristocrats don't want to talk about the wars, then their accomplice press won't talk about it either. The American people would care about paying a war tax, that's for sure, but again aristocrats won't consider it, so neither will their accomplice press.

"The Iraq and Afghan wars are ignored, Brokaw rightly says, because Americans are totally focused on high unemployment and economic insecurity. America’s wars have become irrelevant."

But they're not irrelevant. They money spent on these wars plays a role in making our economy weaker. Not like the much bigger expenses, but a role. And the entire military budget plays a huge role.

On the $80 billion intelligence budget:

"Let’s face it: this “intelligence” gambit is nothing but the latest government hoax to extract money from your bank account and to subject you to wholly unjustifiable deprivations of your just rights. If you think it’s anything else, you probably have not paid it much attention or given it much thought."

I'd like to know how many real plots they stopped in the last 10 years. Not bogus plots created by FBI agent provocateurs, but real plots. I have no doubt that we could have vastly superior intelligence at a small fraction of the cost by employing competing private sector firms instead of these Cold War dinosaur bureaucracies.

Terrorists set off 16 bombs in Baghdad. Yikes. This is strong reminder of the violence US aristocrats unleashed on Iraq when they sent US troops in. It's also a strong reminder that after we effectively defeated al Qaeda in Iraq as a military force, the Iraqi central government has failed to police the country. There's nothing more Americans can do there except provide targets and recruiting incentive for al Qaeda. Bring our troops home.

TERRORISM:

Letter bomber attacks foreign embassies in Athens.

POLITICS:

Obama is catching heat for calling Republicans enemies. To Obama, they are opponents. They are a competing faction of the ruling class. To the American people, both Democrats and Republicans are enemies, because the ruling class is trying to conquer us.

If the tea parties survive to 2012, they'll look a lot different if Republicans win the House. If Republicans win the House, they can try to pass all kinds of small government legislation to fool the people into believing they want to shrink the size and scope of government because they know it will never pass the Senate, and even if it did, Obama would veto it. I expect Republicans to play a really good game for two years until they regain control of all of government, then they'll drop the pretense and go back to their government-worshiping ways.

Latinos making headway in the Republican party.

LOCAL:

Facade of downtown building collapses and falls ten stories, but no one was hurt. Wow. Note to self: Don't walk by this building.

MISC:

The inconvenient truth about blacks fighting on the side of southern states for independence in the war between the states.

"Wesley cites Horace Greeley's American Conflict (1866) saying, "For more than two years, Negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as rebel soldiers and had paraded with white troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union.""

Somebody upset the Lincoln cult's apple cart again.